Disappointed Garrard says knee forced his retirement

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — David Garrard's balky knee kept him from being a serious challenge for the Jets' starting QB job.

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By The Associated Press

recordonline.com

By The Associated Press

Posted May. 17, 2013 at 2:00 AM

By The Associated Press

Posted May. 17, 2013 at 2:00 AM

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FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — David Garrard's balky knee kept him from being a serious challenge for the Jets' starting QB job.

Garrard said Thursday that his left knee kept swelling up on him after workouts, and that forced him to walk away from the game and consider retirement.

"I'd get four or five days of good work on it in and then the next two days it is swollen and I have to do everything I can to get the swelling out," Garrard said. "Start the next week over and it would just be the same process every time, and so it was never just allowing me to just go on and just play without any worries.

"So I just kept thinking: 'How am I going to compete for the starting job if every four days I've got to stop and have an ice bag on my knee while the guys are practicing?'"

Garrard, 35, was signed in March to provide competition for Mark Sanchez. But Garrard hadn't played in a regular-season game in the NFL since 2010 because of injuries. After appearing to be the front-runner ahead of Ryan Tannehill and Matt Moore, the former Jaguars star was cut by the Miami Dolphins last summer after he needed arthroscopic surgery on his knee.

But, he was feeling healthy this offseason and passed his physical with the team. Garrard was expected to be in the mix to compete for the Jets' starting job along with Sanchez and second-round pick Geno Smith. New York also has Greg McElroy and Matt Simms on the roster.

"My knee just never really quite got back to, not to where it was before, but not even just well enough to, it was well enough to get out and run around and stuff, but it would still swell on me," Garrard said. "I thought, 'I look pretty good right now. Maybe if I get on with the team, the treatment that they have there, the round-the-clock treatments you pretty much get, that should probably help me out.' So that's how I was thinking."